


Affected

by NanakiBH



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Childhood Memories, Devotion, Friendship/Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-04
Updated: 2015-04-04
Packaged: 2018-03-21 06:19:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3681210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NanakiBH/pseuds/NanakiBH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This was a promise he'd made to himself. Whenever he was in trouble, he would rescue him. Even if the world were to end, he'd be the one left standing beside him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Affected

**Author's Note:**

> While replaying FFVII for the billionth time, I got to the part where Cloud recalled the time that he and Tifa fell off the bridge in Mt. Nibel. It made me think about the near-death experience that Noctis and Stella supposedly shared together and it made me wonder how that affected Ignis since he and Noctis knew each other since they were little.

About twenty paces behind Gladio and Prompto. Nothing around them except the damp cavern air and the hollow echo of dripping water coming from an indeterminable direction.

Alongside him, Noctis walked with his hands on his arms, a slight shiver in his shoulders. With little to say in the silence, Ignis studied his face in the wavering lamplight, and a familiar weight rested on him when he saw the way the prince's features were drawn together; tight, sharp, crowded by something that had been following him for far longer than the time they had spent in the cave. Against that expression, Ignis felt helpless. A thousand monsters could be slain by his blades and he still wouldn't be able to vanquish the thing that held the prince by the heart.

Desperate to pierce through that intangible beast, he spoke, keeping his voice low, afraid to let it carry in the small, infinite space.

“Are you alright?”

“Huh?” Noctis turned to him with black eyes, darkened with thought. He tried to blink it away, but he knew that Ignis had already seen, knew that he must've known what thoughts he'd been occupied with. Instead of acknowledging it, he just shook his head and rubbed his hands against his arms more furiously. “Just cold,” he said.

 

Ignis still remembered that day when they met, when they were small, before any of this.

Back then, Noctis smiled so easily. He was so bright, it was unnerving. To his younger self who'd had to leave his home for the Lucis Kingdom, the young prince looked so childish, like he didn't even realize how large the world was outside the palace walls. Everything he saw belonged to him.

Even though he'd traveled there to meet him, he was reluctant to speak to him. They told Ignis that he was special, that he was smart, so they wanted him to understand this bothersome child. The closer they were, the easier his job would be, they said. It sounded like such a promise, like friendship was guaranteed by this path – a path he hadn't even chosen for himself.

It felt like fate had taken him away from his friends, his family, and placed him there, in a place where he knew no one. If that were fate, it was cruel, he thought.

That is, until he realized that the prince was just as unhappy. Apparently being the prince didn't make him as popular as Ignis thought. He laughed and he smiled and he tried to act like the other children, but they saw him as something else. That was when Ignis realized why he was there. He realized that he had also mistakenly seen him that way, and, because he was able to realize that, he was able to see through it to see who Noctis really was.

He was the strange one. He didn't think like a kid.

Aching to be accepted, he spoke to him, and he made a friend that easily.

The smiles that Noctis gave him were the real kind. Quickly, he stopped seeing him as the prince and began to see him as his first friend in the Lucis Kingdom – his most important friend, the one he was there for, who he was meant to look after. His warmth was what motivated him. Fate wasn't cruel at all, he thought. His friend's light guided him along the path toward becoming someone who could protect that light. Someday, he promised himself, he was going to guide him.

For that purpose, he continued to advance, working harder, learning everything. He wanted to become the best version of himself for him. Even if it separated them for a while, he would return to him as someone strong and smart, and he would be the one who would always understand him.

One day, fate almost pulled them apart.

With voices full of hesitation, they told him that the prince had been in an accident.

The years he spent shaping himself around that one person fell apart. Suddenly, the light that he'd been following was becoming dim. Terrified that it was going to leave him, he ran to him as quickly as he could, leaving his pencils and textbooks behind. All the things he thought were meant to be his weapons felt like nothing but dead weight that held him back when the prince was in trouble. No matter how smart he made himself, it wouldn't be enough to save him if he weren't there for him.

The girl who had been injured along with him wasn't fairing as well, but the prince had woken by the time Ignis made it to his side. He was glad just to see him, but there was an unsettling silence around him. Ignis talked to him, and he told him about some of the things he'd been learning, but it was a little like he was talking to a doll. Noctis refused to look at him. His eyes were dark, his expression vacant. He seemed sad and... tired.

Though they didn't fully understand it themselves, they told Ignis that the prince had seen something then, in that moment when he nearly met death. They said that he could see the light of dying souls.

Fate, Ignis decided, was cruel after all.

The light that Noctis saw was what stole the light from his eyes, darkening them, showing him terrible things he didn't want to see, things that no one should have to see.

Thinking about the way he looked, Ignis quickly realized that Noctis had avoided looking at him because he must have been afraid of what he would see.

Ignis didn't understand. The textbooks couldn't tell him a way to make Noctis's visions go away. It frightened him, but what frightened him more was the thought of losing him entirely. Noctis was still alive. His light hadn't gone out completely. It was dim, but it was still there, struggling to breathe.

He wasn't his bodyguard, but he insisted that he learn how to fight for the prince's sake. So he continued to learn, and he learned everything he could, and he trained, and he became the best that he could. Against something like fate, his best probably wasn't going to be enough, but he knew that he would rather fail having tried than to have never tried at all. He had to be there for him. Someone who understood him had to be there.

Every faint smile Noctis gave him then was a small victory against the fate that tried to steal him from him.

If he were allowed to dream, then, one day, Noctis's light would shine brightly once more. With his hands, with all he'd learned, he would guide Noctis through the darkness.

It was the wish of a child, but it was one that Ignis still held.

 

“We'll be out of here soon enough,” he promised him, longing for the comforting atmosphere found around the campfire. “Not much longer now.”

“Ignis...”

Hearing his name spoken quietly, Ignis looked at him as they continued to walk, inclining his head to let Noctis know he was listening.

Noctis glanced up at him with something faintly glistening in his eyes, a color Ignis couldn't describe. “You worry too much,” he said. The way he sounded was...

Ahead of them, the others had turned around. Jumping up and down, nearly slipping on the damp rocks, Prompto waved to them, excited that they'd found the exit of the cave. As they neared, they could see the light of the moon above, waiting for them, there to welcome them back.

Before they took another step, Ignis felt the prince's fingers lightly touch his wrist.

His fingers left, but a warmth remained where they'd been.

With a quiet voice timidly filled with fond gratitude, Noctis whispered, “Thank you.”


End file.
